11-02-2024, 09:34 PM
In all honesty, have been losing interest on top of health issues.
So much so that WIPs of Lotus Turbo Challenge (Genesis) and the Woody Woodpecker Master System game ended up being ripped by others who have done a great job. Plus it can take me over 12 hours to do a title screen rip. Just more recently as in the past few weeks had a push to finish some rips especially from the CPC, a case of getting it over and done with.
Lupin III: The Legend of the Gold of Babylon (MSX2)
Yay! Wrong colour jacket though...
TZR Grandprix Rider (MSX)
Yeah, The Zpriters Resource...
Master System
Global Gladiators
Lemmings
No good at the game at all. Had to be done...
Super Kick Off
Now it can be kicked off.
Game de Check! Kōtsū Anzen (JPN)
Rare educational game that teaches road traffic safety. Some places class this as a prototype however more realistically it is a non-commercial game that can be rented, apparently 200-300 copies were produced and only a few still survive today. A Japanese insurance company is credited for publishing and probably one of the only cases on the Master System that this happened (this is more common with the Atari 2600 or the Spectrum with non gaming companies releasing games).
From this point, these rips were done/finished with a non-working Down key...
Back to the Future Part II
Even a simple rip like this is taking ages now...
Castle of Illusion
In the olden days before the likes of trailers (unless you was lucky to see an advert on TV or on a promo tape), companies had done non-interactive demos known as rolling demos. Sometimes like this one, it had different graphics than the final. On home computers like the Spectrum, you might get these on magazine tapes and they considered second class compared to actual playable demos while others like consoles up to the PS1, they weren't for the public but you might if you're lucky see it in a store. This probably would have appeared on the likes of CES or a trade show.
Amstrad CPC
G-LOC
The last of the Sega arcade ports but not the last US Gold game. Just the last commonly released game and most copies seem to bundle the Spectrum version too on the same tape/disk. Like with Grand Prix 500 2 (still WIP), the game is 128k only just because the graphics are stored in that extra RAM.
(Had to do a bit of hacking capturing regarding the Intro. The graphics for the ZEEK blueprint are not in the graphics viewer so I captured the two blueprints via screenshots then to make sure that it is the correct size, went into the Gate Array Registers. This is what I usually do to make capturing Loading Screens easier by changing the border colour to a different colour but... This game is stubborn when it comes to changing palette for that scene, it is hard locked for those five colours that already breaks Mode 1 restrictions. Mode 1 is 4 colours but many games do break this with rasters. e.g. The Living Daylights is Mode 1 but has 8 colours in game and 12 on the menu. So had to change it to Mode 0, took a screenshot as it shows the correct size yet not the right mode then using THAT cropped the other two screenshots so the graphics are the right size. Sometimes ripping what appears to be easy such as title screens and stuff aren't always easy. Done palette hacking and ripping layers when it comes to Genesis title screens.)
Westphaser / Steve McQueen Westphaser
One of the only two games that supported the Lorciels Phaser and was originally bundled with the gun but later got a re-release with the Steve McQueen name (who isn't really well known for being a cowboy as much compared to say Clint Eastwood or John Wayne) and added joystick support. Shouldn't really be ripping games like this or any game with flashing... Luckily it's just finishing off Operation Wolf and Thunderbolt in terms of the sub-genre.
Wacky Races
Despite being similar to the NES game, it's not a port... The Gruesome Twosome and Prof Pat Pending aren't in this game.
Out Run Europa
Completely forgotten about this one... At first glance, this looks like the Master System/Game Gear version but not quite (won't be surprised that the Spectrum/Amstrad/MS/GG versions share something due to the Z80, I know C64 is its own thing). This game uses a "blocky" engine as in all of the graphics are made up of tilesets and feels like it. Still working on the C64 version.
Livingstone I Presume
Yeah, this does have some right outdated stereotypes as the enemies even for its time. According to the release dates, this is the original version alongside the MSX version (MSX 1 version, not sure when the MSX2 version was released but notable for being one of the very few non-Japanese, non-homebrew MSX2 games) while Opera Soft later did the Spectrum, Atari ST and the C64 versions, the latter was bugged and can't be completed until 2023 when a YouTuber of all things fixed the bug. Unusually for the UK release, Alligata actually put an infinite lives cheat in the manual. No joke.
Livingstone 2
Can't even get past the first part of first level and the icon shows... Ripped last year but forgot to upload until now.
Grell & Falla
One of the last Codemasters games released on the computer and ironically as it turns out one of the oldest WIP games that was in my backlog! Started way back in February 2018 and a case of coming full circle, started what was my new laptop is now my soon to be retired laptop with a non-working down key. (Did have a Windows hybrid tablet during this time so probably would have been ripped from that) Started ripping this when I used WinAPE but then changed to CapriceForever about two years ago, both times were about half the sprites. After the first attempt of Return of the Jedi shortly after this, there were no more CPC rips until World Series Baseball and that would have been when the graphics viewer was added in CapriceForever (if you look carefully, some were ripped from WinAPE and some were ripped from Caprice just by the different palettes) plus WinAPE is increasingly difficult to run on modern computers. As it turned out, the tape was not backed up on my laptop and got lost in the shuffle hence why it took so long. Anyway... Grell & Falla themselves got completely re-ripped on October 1 2024. Then the enemies/objects progress got lost due to a mistake...
Yes, Grell reminds me a bit of Wario...
Highway Patrol / Highway Patrol II
Basically if Microids did Test Drive (before they released Gear.Club Unlimited) and ironically actually plays better than the Amstrad port of Test Drive 2. Sadly Highway Patrol II is almost the same as the first game just removed the cutscene with the officer, even the loading screen is the same! The only change was the criminal car (and some internal changes making it harder to rip)... Looking around it might be a re-release rather than the sequel just so it can use the same box as the Amiga and Atari ST versions otherwise it is literally the laziest sequel ever made. Yep, beating the likes of roster update sports games, Crazy Cars 2 C64, Olympic Hockey 98 and even bootlegs. At least those change the title screen...
Les Aventures de Pepito au Mexique
Back to ripping from brands, this time a character who appears on French biscuits.
Game Over
Was going to save this to last for obvious reasons but it was fairly easy to rip from.
The Games: Winter Edition
Some of these graphics are just ugly... Cross Country Skiing sprites (one of the two best looking events along with Luge) even had shadow masks for Mode 0. Why?! You only need shadow masks if it was in Spectrum format... It's like either pushed for time or just gave up half way through development.
Going to do something that I have never done before... Giving Olympic Gold and Winter Olympics some praise because those two games are US Gold's only "good" athletic games overall, with the ports of Summer and Winter Games being the best on the Amstrad (done by Choice, who usually are with Ocean) even if the C64 versions are best if you count the Epyx ones and not US Gold... Thinking about it, it gave me the idea to rip from Olympic Gold (Genesis version) and the current WIP sheet of the Athlete had to be re-ripped costing precious time...
WEC Le Mans
Finally! One of the best Amstrad racing games and still somewhat playable today despite the lower frame rate. It's been in the backlog since January 2022 and the loading screen was ripped back then. This game stores the car the same way that some Spectrum games do with its 8 pixel sprite column then 8 pixel mask yet ironically completely different graphics compared to the actual Spectrum version and is native Mode 1 (rather than storing at Mode 2/Spectrum format). Despite taking two years, just could not find the dust sprites in the graphics viewer at all... Squinted though looking for pixels, blanked out the other sprites and that for some reason has the in game screen 15 times mixed in with roadside objects! Nope... so sadly had to take the old route...
Titus the Fox
The Hit Squad
Not the infamous Ocean budget range (even if some releases are far from budget these days if you're collecting) but rather a Codemasters release that kind of is like a 1 player version of Quartet. Then again something tells me that another publisher possibly Pirate Software considered, they went bankrupt and Codies got the game last minute, enough for an Amstrad version but not C64 as this was originally a Spectrum game. I'm lucky to get past the first level and even then it's luck since it's very easy to drain energy in this game, the icon is as far as I can go... This was actually part of the backlog years ago but forgot about it until fairly recently.
Just couldn't find those weapon effects anywhere...
4x4 Off-Road Racing
A case of started to rip the Spectrum version but ended up doing this version instead. Funnily enough all four trucks have the same sprite.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
US Gold had no confidence releasing this despite having adverts and only got a release in France, this was US Gold's last ever Amstrad game and one of the last games from the commercial era (yeah, you can tell its getting closer to the end of Amstrad ripping...). It was so obscure that the only English review back in the day was 1 paragraph in a French magazine. I don't think it's finished and feels like a beta version...
Also found a secret in the intro!
Dick Tracy (GX4000/Plus)
The world works in mysterious ways since Titus put a lot of effort into this version, more than finishing off the C64 version. Completely new graphics, music in game and scrolling! Had it been any other console, the game would have been average at best but because the GX4000 flopped (the Plus range just a bit less) and many of the games were just literally the same as the Amstrad CPC version maybe with a palette change and changing the loading screen to a title screen, it meant that it was one of the better ones that took advantage of the hardware. Not on the scale of Burnin' Rubber, RoboCop 2, Navy SEALs, Pang, recent homebrew such as UFO Robo Grendizer or the upcoming SonicGX though.
(Also can only get to the start of Stage 3 even with a trainer version with infinite health and bullets once the weapons are collected. Meaning the bosses aren't ripped.)
Also some bad news... This is the last GX4000 game that I'm ripping and others had to be dropped due to various sprite viewer issues with CapriceForever from when they first got included (sprites are the incorrect 128x64 but shows up as 127x63 as the window border bleeds into the frame with the sprite leaking into the frame with lots of blank space, Burnin' Rubber relies on layering too) and they even happen in the latest version but in a different way (fixed the empty space but 4th sprite in a row is cropped, size is too big and combining any character into 3 sprites meaning Dick Tracy cannot be arranged). I can't rip with broken sprite viewers...
Obsidian
Had to use a map and cheats for infinite lives and nitro if I can to explore the game to get all the palette variations. First thought of two different palettes but it seems that the map at CPCPower might have palette glitches. Tried the original Artic, the Americana (US Gold) re-release and even the French version, the palettes were the same.
Archon: The Light & The Dark
Was going to do Street Sports Basketball as it was on the list except... In game the players are surrounded with an outline, the problem is that the shadow mask (the graphics themselves are in Spectrum format aka Mode 2) is not displayed at all in the Graphics Viewer except for the ball itself. This means that without it, the sprites are broken and don't want to rip knowing that... Tried to see if there was an alternative way but nope... Another one was Cycit, a lost motorbike game from 1986 only just been rediscovered. The disk was preserved on September 21 2024 and looked at the 28th so literally would have been quick except... Could only do the traffic lights and some but not all the signs because the graphics viewer shows a mess on the bikes, don't know whether its compressed, just only showing some parts or both. Then checked Jack Nicklaus Golf and that seems to be garbage in the graphics viewer no matter the setting, looks like runs off a framebuffer.
So that leaves Xyphoes Fantasy, Grand Prix 500 2, Operation Wolf/Thunderbolt (half way!), the Nigel Mansell games (nearly there!), a couple of stranglers in terms of Spanish games, a few that weren't ready in time and Game Over 2 left before sunsetting the Amstrad CPC. Just felt like I've done enough...
Spectrum
Street Fighter
Another one ripped ages ago but forgot to upload. From the looks of things the rest of the Spectrum rips have been dropped...
C64
Kung-Fu Master
Nearly it for beat'em ups... At least this is a classic...
(Also glad that trained versions exist otherwise I would struggle getting past the first enemy!)
1000 Miglia
An Italian developed racing game where the only versions that I can find are old scene releases that are a bit broken. It's one of those games where yes, it could be better especially when it comes to selecting options and what appears to be random breakdowns during a race but not as bad as it is made out to be as there are far worse racing games and disappointing ports on the computer. Just an average game really...
Slicks
Ohh dear... Despite the praise from C64 fans, it reminds me of those Japanese developed top down F1 games (e.g. F1 Grand Prix, F1 Spirit, F1 Circus, F1 Dream, etc) where they are so fast that they are hard to see what's ahead and have to be quick to react. Not my kind of game but can see why it is praised by its speed and presentation. Also happens to be one of the last Codemasters published games on the C64 before they moved onto consoles and PC.
Super Cycle
GBA
TOCA World Touring Cars
Just wanted an easy rip due to a problem ripping Pocket Rockets (thought that it was done, pixel differences with the bikes that I didn't detect due to my vision and only when palette comparison that it was picked up, only half a bike got ripped and there are four bikes). Just like Top Gear GT Championship, all cars share the same 256 color palette. There are a couple of pink focused cars such as the Ford Taurus and there are a few pinks in the palette similar in value. To prevent the risk, changed the background to a more familiar green that is not in that palette. The other cars aren't affected and keep its original palette.
Crazy Taxi: Catch a Ride
Ya ya ya ya ya! I'm surprised... The taxis are just 16 colour pre-rendered sprites. Nearly everything else (outside of HUD stuff) is 3D rendered including the shadows and when looking at the background or tile viewer, it's stored as a framebuffer...
Top Gear GT Championship
Sadly the manual didn't help much for Top Gear, it just says play the Championship mode to unlock the cars. That I ended up doing just to know which car is which... Also had to create save states because of how the game actually handles the cars compared to the manual. The first class is the same as Quick Race but Classes 2, 3 and 4 are different. In Class 2, you choose your car, a different selection than 1 but after completing that Class, you get a different selection plus the car that you previously raced in. Even when you complete a game, you only unlock any cars that you chose during Championship so you're in trouble if you choose the same car throughout for the later classes...
Not much for me now on the GBA...
PC Engine / TurboGrafx CD
Road Spirits
Believe it or not there was a time when Arc System Works worked on racing games and not just fighting or beat 'em ups, usually uncredited for Sega and usually on the Master System/Game Gear though. Yet another get out of the way rip despite being in the backlog for over six years and was going to do this about two years ago.
As for why the car names in brackets, in a prototype version the cars do have their proper names but in the final or REV2 build, it got changed due to not getting the licenses for the cars. Also the Renault and Citroën 2CV were made unlockable with codes and no longer appear on the car select, they still in game as traffic though.
Can't see me doing much more on the console though... Half of the racing games are what I mentioned are just like Slicks, others are compressed in the ROM, only load 1 sprite in the viewer, that black background issue with the tiles (with no fix) or all. Did manage to do portraits from a F1 manager game though, not that there's much graphics due to the genre in question yet slightly more than expected and of course... the language barrier being a bit of an issue.
Game Boy
Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing
One of those games that uses layering and managed to get the racing game backlog down a bit.
Now Something Completely Different
The Catch Lupin the 3rd Game
A Lupin flash game, done when Pioneer/Geneon had the rights to Part 2 (the Red Jacket series that was on Adult Swim in the US, famous for its dub and memes). This is my first and most likely my last Flash game that I will be ripping... JPEXS has way too small text and I have extreme difficulty reading tiny text. Also had to use different exporting tools as GraphicsGale is no good for transparency (doing the usual icons yes, importing stuff that is ALREADY transparent nope so used SpriteSheeter to sheet the rips and the icon was done via GIMP).
Still can't say no to more Lupin.
Shockwave Hockey
Back in high school a loooooooooooong time ago, this was one of the few games that I did play along with Rampage, Spy Hunter, Tamala Loco: Rumble in the Desert 2 and I think a couple of the Nabisco flash games (recall a Newton's bike game) but not as much as those four. Didn't really play many web games. Well considering Internet Explorer was the main browser, mostly stuck to "proper" websites rather than dubious ones that could cause malware...
A strange fact, the players are encoded in Flash format meaning that they are in a higher resolution than the rest of the graphics!
Now it's mainly going to be along with finishing Amstrad:
- Finishing as much of the C64 backlog, mostly racing games (e.g. Out Run Europa, Super Monaco GP, Grand Prix Circuit)
- Hopefully the two remaining Lupin games (Cagliostro and the FM Towns game unless there's any 2D art in The Shooting/The Typing).
- A few Master System and Game Gear games to mop up, more of the latter due to shadowman44's excellent rips on the Master System. Had I been good at RPGs, would have tackled the Phantasy Star and sorting out the big mess that's the Shining Force Gaiden games (the rips on tSR had merged all three games with just one, confusingly only Part 2 got an official English translation) but alas...
- A few MSX games such as City Connection, not much on the computer though as I don't like its layering.
- "Jackie"
- A fair few title screens, fonts, low key rips to beef up some sections
- A few re-rips here and there without any fanfare
- A couple of low key Genesis rips so expect LOW expectations and not popular games or indeed a popular genre...
- Might fight evil in moonlight to quote an old song...
- Will have a surprise
- Most importantly will try to get as much of the racing game backlog done (a few Game Boy, Arcade mainly Lethal Crash Race, maybe even finishing the Saturn version of Monaco GP). A few Genesis ones even seem promising (Quad Challenge - port of Four Trax, Mario Andretti Racing, Test Drive 2) but Road Riot 4WD would have to be ripped via TileGGD due to not using the typical Genesis format or as I call it MD racing format as Outlander, Road Rash series does the same.
So much so that WIPs of Lotus Turbo Challenge (Genesis) and the Woody Woodpecker Master System game ended up being ripped by others who have done a great job. Plus it can take me over 12 hours to do a title screen rip. Just more recently as in the past few weeks had a push to finish some rips especially from the CPC, a case of getting it over and done with.
Lupin III: The Legend of the Gold of Babylon (MSX2)
Lupin III
Yay! Wrong colour jacket though...
TZR Grandprix Rider (MSX)
Rival
Yeah, The Zpriters Resource...
Master System
Global Gladiators
Mick & Mack
Ronald McDonald
Lemmings
Lemmings
No good at the game at all. Had to be done...
Super Kick Off
Players
Ball
Now it can be kicked off.
Game de Check! Kōtsū Anzen (JPN)
Driving Eye
Speed Sense
Pyonkichi-kun
Fox
Pig
Results
Rare educational game that teaches road traffic safety. Some places class this as a prototype however more realistically it is a non-commercial game that can be rented, apparently 200-300 copies were produced and only a few still survive today. A Japanese insurance company is credited for publishing and probably one of the only cases on the Master System that this happened (this is more common with the Atari 2600 or the Spectrum with non gaming companies releasing games).
From this point, these rips were done/finished with a non-working Down key...
Back to the Future Part II
Jennifer
Mission 2 Enemies
Mission 4 (Sliding Puzzle)
Even a simple rip like this is taking ages now...
Castle of Illusion
Rolling Demo Graphics
In the olden days before the likes of trailers (unless you was lucky to see an advert on TV or on a promo tape), companies had done non-interactive demos known as rolling demos. Sometimes like this one, it had different graphics than the final. On home computers like the Spectrum, you might get these on magazine tapes and they considered second class compared to actual playable demos while others like consoles up to the PS1, they weren't for the public but you might if you're lucky see it in a store. This probably would have appeared on the likes of CES or a trade show.
Amstrad CPC
G-LOC
A8M5 MK II ZEEK
Ship
Tank
Tower
Explosion
Missiles
Intro
Carrier
The last of the Sega arcade ports but not the last US Gold game. Just the last commonly released game and most copies seem to bundle the Spectrum version too on the same tape/disk. Like with Grand Prix 500 2 (still WIP), the game is 128k only just because the graphics are stored in that extra RAM.
(Had to do a bit of hacking capturing regarding the Intro. The graphics for the ZEEK blueprint are not in the graphics viewer so I captured the two blueprints via screenshots then to make sure that it is the correct size, went into the Gate Array Registers. This is what I usually do to make capturing Loading Screens easier by changing the border colour to a different colour but... This game is stubborn when it comes to changing palette for that scene, it is hard locked for those five colours that already breaks Mode 1 restrictions. Mode 1 is 4 colours but many games do break this with rasters. e.g. The Living Daylights is Mode 1 but has 8 colours in game and 12 on the menu. So had to change it to Mode 0, took a screenshot as it shows the correct size yet not the right mode then using THAT cropped the other two screenshots so the graphics are the right size. Sometimes ripping what appears to be easy such as title screens and stuff aren't always easy. Done palette hacking and ripping layers when it comes to Genesis title screens.)
Westphaser / Steve McQueen Westphaser
Apache Kid
Belle Starr
Big Nose
Billy Kid
Jesse James
Qwantrill
Saloon Cowboy
Saloon Friendlies
Enemies
Backgrounds
Items
One of the only two games that supported the Lorciels Phaser and was originally bundled with the gun but later got a re-release with the Steve McQueen name (who isn't really well known for being a cowboy as much compared to say Clint Eastwood or John Wayne) and added joystick support. Shouldn't really be ripping games like this or any game with flashing... Luckily it's just finishing off Operation Wolf and Thunderbolt in terms of the sub-genre.
Wacky Races
Mean Machine
Muttley
Wacky Racers
Objects
Despite being similar to the NES game, it's not a port... The Gruesome Twosome and Prof Pat Pending aren't in this game.
Out Run Europa
Motorbike
Jet Ski
Porsche
Power Boat
Ferrari
Road Traffic
Water Traffic
Helicopter
Items
Effects
Completely forgotten about this one... At first glance, this looks like the Master System/Game Gear version but not quite (won't be surprised that the Spectrum/Amstrad/MS/GG versions share something due to the Z80, I know C64 is its own thing). This game uses a "blocky" engine as in all of the graphics are made up of tilesets and feels like it. Still working on the C64 version.
Livingstone I Presume
Henry Morton Stanley
Yeah, this does have some right outdated stereotypes as the enemies even for its time. According to the release dates, this is the original version alongside the MSX version (MSX 1 version, not sure when the MSX2 version was released but notable for being one of the very few non-Japanese, non-homebrew MSX2 games) while Opera Soft later did the Spectrum, Atari ST and the C64 versions, the latter was bugged and can't be completed until 2023 when a YouTuber of all things fixed the bug. Unusually for the UK release, Alligata actually put an infinite lives cheat in the manual. No joke.
Livingstone 2
Henry Morton Stanley
Can't even get past the first part of first level and the icon shows... Ripped last year but forgot to upload until now.
Grell & Falla
Grell / Bjorn Grellenstone
Falla / Falanthriel Peaseblossom
One of the last Codemasters games released on the computer and ironically as it turns out one of the oldest WIP games that was in my backlog! Started way back in February 2018 and a case of coming full circle, started what was my new laptop is now my soon to be retired laptop with a non-working down key. (Did have a Windows hybrid tablet during this time so probably would have been ripped from that) Started ripping this when I used WinAPE but then changed to CapriceForever about two years ago, both times were about half the sprites. After the first attempt of Return of the Jedi shortly after this, there were no more CPC rips until World Series Baseball and that would have been when the graphics viewer was added in CapriceForever (if you look carefully, some were ripped from WinAPE and some were ripped from Caprice just by the different palettes) plus WinAPE is increasingly difficult to run on modern computers. As it turned out, the tape was not backed up on my laptop and got lost in the shuffle hence why it took so long. Anyway... Grell & Falla themselves got completely re-ripped on October 1 2024. Then the enemies/objects progress got lost due to a mistake...
Yes, Grell reminds me a bit of Wario...
Highway Patrol / Highway Patrol II
Criminal Car
Basically if Microids did Test Drive (before they released Gear.Club Unlimited) and ironically actually plays better than the Amstrad port of Test Drive 2. Sadly Highway Patrol II is almost the same as the first game just removed the cutscene with the officer, even the loading screen is the same! The only change was the criminal car (and some internal changes making it harder to rip)... Looking around it might be a re-release rather than the sequel just so it can use the same box as the Amiga and Atari ST versions otherwise it is literally the laziest sequel ever made. Yep, beating the likes of roster update sports games, Crazy Cars 2 C64, Olympic Hockey 98 and even bootlegs. At least those change the title screen...
Les Aventures de Pepito au Mexique
Pépito
Back to ripping from brands, this time a character who appears on French biscuits.
Game Over
Arkos
Planet Carcel / Hypsis Enemies
Giant Orko
Giant Robot
Imperial Palace / Planet Sckunn Enemies
Effects
Was going to save this to last for obvious reasons but it was fairly easy to rip from.
The Games: Winter Edition
Luge
Slalom
Ceremonies
Some of these graphics are just ugly... Cross Country Skiing sprites (one of the two best looking events along with Luge) even had shadow masks for Mode 0. Why?! You only need shadow masks if it was in Spectrum format... It's like either pushed for time or just gave up half way through development.
Going to do something that I have never done before... Giving Olympic Gold and Winter Olympics some praise because those two games are US Gold's only "good" athletic games overall, with the ports of Summer and Winter Games being the best on the Amstrad (done by Choice, who usually are with Ocean) even if the C64 versions are best if you count the Epyx ones and not US Gold... Thinking about it, it gave me the idea to rip from Olympic Gold (Genesis version) and the current WIP sheet of the Athlete had to be re-ripped costing precious time...
WEC Le Mans
Car
Finally! One of the best Amstrad racing games and still somewhat playable today despite the lower frame rate. It's been in the backlog since January 2022 and the loading screen was ripped back then. This game stores the car the same way that some Spectrum games do with its 8 pixel sprite column then 8 pixel mask yet ironically completely different graphics compared to the actual Spectrum version and is native Mode 1 (rather than storing at Mode 2/Spectrum format). Despite taking two years, just could not find the dust sprites in the graphics viewer at all... Squinted though looking for pixels, blanked out the other sprites and that for some reason has the in game screen 15 times mixed in with roadside objects! Nope... so sadly had to take the old route...
Titus the Fox
Titus the Fox
Enemies
Objects
The Hit Squad
Players
Enemies
Not the infamous Ocean budget range (even if some releases are far from budget these days if you're collecting) but rather a Codemasters release that kind of is like a 1 player version of Quartet. Then again something tells me that another publisher possibly Pirate Software considered, they went bankrupt and Codies got the game last minute, enough for an Amstrad version but not C64 as this was originally a Spectrum game. I'm lucky to get past the first level and even then it's luck since it's very easy to drain energy in this game, the icon is as far as I can go... This was actually part of the backlog years ago but forgot about it until fairly recently.
Just couldn't find those weapon effects anywhere...
4x4 Off-Road Racing
Truck
A case of started to rip the Spectrum version but ended up doing this version instead. Funnily enough all four trucks have the same sprite.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones
Sophia Hapgood
Intro
US Gold had no confidence releasing this despite having adverts and only got a release in France, this was US Gold's last ever Amstrad game and one of the last games from the commercial era (yeah, you can tell its getting closer to the end of Amstrad ripping...). It was so obscure that the only English review back in the day was 1 paragraph in a French magazine. I don't think it's finished and feels like a beta version...
Also found a secret in the intro!
Dick Tracy (GX4000/Plus)
Dick Tracy
Enemies
The world works in mysterious ways since Titus put a lot of effort into this version, more than finishing off the C64 version. Completely new graphics, music in game and scrolling! Had it been any other console, the game would have been average at best but because the GX4000 flopped (the Plus range just a bit less) and many of the games were just literally the same as the Amstrad CPC version maybe with a palette change and changing the loading screen to a title screen, it meant that it was one of the better ones that took advantage of the hardware. Not on the scale of Burnin' Rubber, RoboCop 2, Navy SEALs, Pang, recent homebrew such as UFO Robo Grendizer or the upcoming SonicGX though.
(Also can only get to the start of Stage 3 even with a trainer version with infinite health and bullets once the weapons are collected. Meaning the bosses aren't ripped.)
Also some bad news... This is the last GX4000 game that I'm ripping and others had to be dropped due to various sprite viewer issues with CapriceForever from when they first got included (sprites are the incorrect 128x64 but shows up as 127x63 as the window border bleeds into the frame with the sprite leaking into the frame with lots of blank space, Burnin' Rubber relies on layering too) and they even happen in the latest version but in a different way (fixed the empty space but 4th sprite in a row is cropped, size is too big and combining any character into 3 sprites meaning Dick Tracy cannot be arranged). I can't rip with broken sprite viewers...
Obsidian
Player
Had to use a map and cheats for infinite lives and nitro if I can to explore the game to get all the palette variations. First thought of two different palettes but it seems that the map at CPCPower might have palette glitches. Tried the original Artic, the Americana (US Gold) re-release and even the French version, the palettes were the same.
Archon: The Light & The Dark
Dark Side
Light Side
Was going to do Street Sports Basketball as it was on the list except... In game the players are surrounded with an outline, the problem is that the shadow mask (the graphics themselves are in Spectrum format aka Mode 2) is not displayed at all in the Graphics Viewer except for the ball itself. This means that without it, the sprites are broken and don't want to rip knowing that... Tried to see if there was an alternative way but nope... Another one was Cycit, a lost motorbike game from 1986 only just been rediscovered. The disk was preserved on September 21 2024 and looked at the 28th so literally would have been quick except... Could only do the traffic lights and some but not all the signs because the graphics viewer shows a mess on the bikes, don't know whether its compressed, just only showing some parts or both. Then checked Jack Nicklaus Golf and that seems to be garbage in the graphics viewer no matter the setting, looks like runs off a framebuffer.
So that leaves Xyphoes Fantasy, Grand Prix 500 2, Operation Wolf/Thunderbolt (half way!), the Nigel Mansell games (nearly there!), a couple of stranglers in terms of Spanish games, a few that weren't ready in time and Game Over 2 left before sunsetting the Amstrad CPC. Just felt like I've done enough...
Spectrum
Street Fighter
Retsu
Another one ripped ages ago but forgot to upload. From the looks of things the rest of the Spectrum rips have been dropped...
C64
Kung-Fu Master
Thomas
Enemies
Bosses
Sylvia
Nearly it for beat'em ups... At least this is a classic...
(Also glad that trained versions exist otherwise I would struggle getting past the first enemy!)
1000 Miglia
Car
An Italian developed racing game where the only versions that I can find are old scene releases that are a bit broken. It's one of those games where yes, it could be better especially when it comes to selecting options and what appears to be random breakdowns during a race but not as bad as it is made out to be as there are far worse racing games and disappointing ports on the computer. Just an average game really...
Slicks
Car
Ohh dear... Despite the praise from C64 fans, it reminds me of those Japanese developed top down F1 games (e.g. F1 Grand Prix, F1 Spirit, F1 Circus, F1 Dream, etc) where they are so fast that they are hard to see what's ahead and have to be quick to react. Not my kind of game but can see why it is praised by its speed and presentation. Also happens to be one of the last Codemasters published games on the C64 before they moved onto consoles and PC.
Super Cycle
Rider
Flagman
GBA
TOCA World Touring Cars
Fiat Marea
Ford Taurus
Lincoln LS
Mitsubishi Galant
Mitsubishi Lancer
Alfa Romeo 156
Audi A4
Volvo S40
Lexus GS300
Mercury Sable
Renault Laguna
Ford Mondeo
Saab 95
Toyota Camry
AC Superblower
Audi TT
Bentley Hunaudières
TVR Cerbera
Just wanted an easy rip due to a problem ripping Pocket Rockets (thought that it was done, pixel differences with the bikes that I didn't detect due to my vision and only when palette comparison that it was picked up, only half a bike got ripped and there are four bikes). Just like Top Gear GT Championship, all cars share the same 256 color palette. There are a couple of pink focused cars such as the Ford Taurus and there are a few pinks in the palette similar in value. To prevent the risk, changed the background to a more familiar green that is not in that palette. The other cars aren't affected and keep its original palette.
Crazy Taxi: Catch a Ride
Axel
B.D. Joe
Gena
Gus
Ya ya ya ya ya! I'm surprised... The taxis are just 16 colour pre-rendered sprites. Nearly everything else (outside of HUD stuff) is 3D rendered including the shadows and when looking at the background or tile viewer, it's stored as a framebuffer...
Top Gear GT Championship
Castrol Nismo GT-R
Unisia Xanavi Skyline
Castrol TOM'S Supra
cdma Cerumo Supra
Endless Advan Supra
Raybrig NSX
ARTA NSX
Calsonic Skyline
Esso Ultron Tiger Supra
MatsuKiyo TOM'S Supra
Takata Dome NSX
Castrol MUGEN NSX
Denso SARD Supra GT
FKMassimo Cerumo Supra
Loctite Zexel GT-R
Mobil 1 NSX
Super Autobacs A'PEX MR-S
Sadly the manual didn't help much for Top Gear, it just says play the Championship mode to unlock the cars. That I ended up doing just to know which car is which... Also had to create save states because of how the game actually handles the cars compared to the manual. The first class is the same as Quick Race but Classes 2, 3 and 4 are different. In Class 2, you choose your car, a different selection than 1 but after completing that Class, you get a different selection plus the car that you previously raced in. Even when you complete a game, you only unlock any cars that you chose during Championship so you're in trouble if you choose the same car throughout for the later classes...
Not much for me now on the GBA...
PC Engine / TurboGrafx CD
Road Spirits
V8 DOHC (Ferrari F40)
V12 DOHC (Lamborghini Diablo)
V6 SOHC (Porsche 911 Carrera Speedster)
Citroën 2CV
Renault 5 Turbo
V6 DOHC (Honda NSX)
Believe it or not there was a time when Arc System Works worked on racing games and not just fighting or beat 'em ups, usually uncredited for Sega and usually on the Master System/Game Gear though. Yet another get out of the way rip despite being in the backlog for over six years and was going to do this about two years ago.
As for why the car names in brackets, in a prototype version the cars do have their proper names but in the final or REV2 build, it got changed due to not getting the licenses for the cars. Also the Renault and Citroën 2CV were made unlockable with codes and no longer appear on the car select, they still in game as traffic though.
Can't see me doing much more on the console though... Half of the racing games are what I mentioned are just like Slicks, others are compressed in the ROM, only load 1 sprite in the viewer, that black background issue with the tiles (with no fix) or all. Did manage to do portraits from a F1 manager game though, not that there's much graphics due to the genre in question yet slightly more than expected and of course... the language barrier being a bit of an issue.
Game Boy
Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing
Rider
LA Beach
Mexico
Downtown
Europe
Japan
One of those games that uses layering and managed to get the racing game backlog down a bit.
Now Something Completely Different
The Catch Lupin the 3rd Game
Targets
Background Elements
A Lupin flash game, done when Pioneer/Geneon had the rights to Part 2 (the Red Jacket series that was on Adult Swim in the US, famous for its dub and memes). This is my first and most likely my last Flash game that I will be ripping... JPEXS has way too small text and I have extreme difficulty reading tiny text. Also had to use different exporting tools as GraphicsGale is no good for transparency (doing the usual icons yes, importing stuff that is ALREADY transparent nope so used SpriteSheeter to sheet the rips and the icon was done via GIMP).
Still can't say no to more Lupin.
Shockwave Hockey
Players
Rink
Back in high school a loooooooooooong time ago, this was one of the few games that I did play along with Rampage, Spy Hunter, Tamala Loco: Rumble in the Desert 2 and I think a couple of the Nabisco flash games (recall a Newton's bike game) but not as much as those four. Didn't really play many web games. Well considering Internet Explorer was the main browser, mostly stuck to "proper" websites rather than dubious ones that could cause malware...
A strange fact, the players are encoded in Flash format meaning that they are in a higher resolution than the rest of the graphics!
Now it's mainly going to be along with finishing Amstrad:
- Finishing as much of the C64 backlog, mostly racing games (e.g. Out Run Europa, Super Monaco GP, Grand Prix Circuit)
- Hopefully the two remaining Lupin games (Cagliostro and the FM Towns game unless there's any 2D art in The Shooting/The Typing).
- A few Master System and Game Gear games to mop up, more of the latter due to shadowman44's excellent rips on the Master System. Had I been good at RPGs, would have tackled the Phantasy Star and sorting out the big mess that's the Shining Force Gaiden games (the rips on tSR had merged all three games with just one, confusingly only Part 2 got an official English translation) but alas...
- A few MSX games such as City Connection, not much on the computer though as I don't like its layering.
- "Jackie"
- A fair few title screens, fonts, low key rips to beef up some sections
- A few re-rips here and there without any fanfare
- A couple of low key Genesis rips so expect LOW expectations and not popular games or indeed a popular genre...
- Might fight evil in moonlight to quote an old song...
- Will have a surprise
- Most importantly will try to get as much of the racing game backlog done (a few Game Boy, Arcade mainly Lethal Crash Race, maybe even finishing the Saturn version of Monaco GP). A few Genesis ones even seem promising (Quad Challenge - port of Four Trax, Mario Andretti Racing, Test Drive 2) but Road Riot 4WD would have to be ripped via TileGGD due to not using the typical Genesis format or as I call it MD racing format as Outlander, Road Rash series does the same.